The instruction from the district court
The assessment begins when the family law service receives instructions from the district court. These set out which issues the court wants investigated: custody (legal responsibility for the child), residence, contact, or all three. The family law service then plans how to conduct the assessment and who needs to be interviewed.
Interviews with parents
As a parent, you will normally be invited to individual interviews to describe your view of your child, the conflict and the other parent’s ability to care for the child. The family law service listens not only to what you say, but also to how you express yourself.
The child’s everyday life and interviews with the child
The family law service tries to understand the reality of your child’s life: where your child lives, their routines, how they are getting on at school or nursery, their wellbeing and their relationship with each parent.
If your child is of sufficient age and maturity, they will be interviewed. Your child should not have to choose between their parents. The assessors try to establish whether your child feels secure, stressed, under pressure or caught between loyalties, and whether they appear to be influenced by either parent.
Information from others and home visits
The family law service often contacts people and services involved in your child’s life, such as their school or nursery, child and adolescent mental health services (BUP), or social services. What a parent says may be coloured by the conflict, so information from external sources is often important.
Home visits are also usual. The family law service is not looking for a perfect home, but for a secure environment for your child, with structure and a workable daily routine.
Ability to care for the child and cooperate
Throughout the assessment, your ability to care for your child is assessed:
- Can you provide a sense of security?
- Can you put your child’s needs before your own conflict?
- Can you cooperate on matters concerning your child?
- Can you protect your child from adults’ problems?
Cooperation and risk assessment
Joint custody requires you and the other parent to be able to make important decisions together. Ordinary irritation or difficulties communicating do not always count against joint custody: the conflict must actually affect your child and important decisions.
Where there are reports of violence, threats, substance misuse, mental ill health, manipulation or deliberate obstruction of contact, a risk assessment is carried out to establish whether your child is at risk of harm. Allegations carry greater weight if supported by documentation, previous reports to the authorities, clinical records, messages or other concrete circumstances.
Analysis and report
Once the information has been gathered, the family law service considers your child’s needs, each parent’s abilities, relationships, risk, stability and ability to cooperate, and makes a professional assessment. It then prepares a report for the district court with a recommendation, for example on joint or sole custody, living primarily with one parent or alternately with both, or specific contact arrangements.
The court is not formally bound by the recommendation, but in practice a child custody assessment often carries considerable weight.
Putting yourself in the strongest position
You do not win a child custody assessment by speaking as negatively as possible about the other parent. The parent in the strongest position is often the one who comes across as stable, credible, focused on the child and capable of protecting the child from the conflict.